Council must maintain bicycle infrastructure funding

The Greens will put a motion to next week’s Council meeting asking Council to commit to maintaining funding for bicycle infrastructure in the 2009/10 budget, after Labor slashed the bicycle funding in half in the draft budget now on public exhibition.

“Under the draft budget, Labor has slashed funding for bicycle infrastructure from $610,000 currently, to $320,000 in the draft budget and even further to $220,000 in the forward estimates,” said Greens Councillor Max Phillips.

“Cyclists are being abandoned by the Labor and Independent councillors in this budget.

“Marrickville Council should be investing in sustainable transport, investing in bicycle infrastructure – not slashing it.

“The City of Sydney is spending $70million on building a bicycle network, including 50 kilometres of separated bike lanes. It is simply not good enough for Marrickville to be going backward on cycling and spending less than 1/70th of what the City of Sydney is spending.

“Labor wants to spend $2 million on expanding a car park and covering Arlington Oval in fake grass, while at the same time is slashing the bicycle budget in half.

“I urge Inner West cyclists to write a submission to the draft budget asking for the bicycle budget to be at least maintained at current levels, if not increased.”

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The Marrickville and Petersham-Newtown Greens are the local groups for members of The Greens political party living in the Sydney suburbs of Dulwich Hill, Enmore, Lewisham, Marrickville, Newtown, Petersham, St Peters, Stanmore, Sydenham and Tempe.

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